Modern sausage encasing machines can produce up to 30,000 linked sausages per hour. These machines each have conveyors which serve to handle the elongated encased sausage ropes as they are discharged from the machines. A machine operator attends the operation of the machines and removes the sausage ropes from the conveyors. Typically, one operator is required to oversee each machine. This is primarily caused by the configuration of the conveyors which dispense the sausage ropes to one side of the elongated conveyor, thus making it difficult if not impossible for a single operator to simultaneously attend more than one machine.
Horizontal conveyors have been used in conjunction with sausage making machines. They have a horizontally disposed conveyor chain suspended on a frame with hook elements extending outwardly therefrom to receive loops of an encased sausage rope. The velocity of the chain imposed on the loops causes them to swing laterally from the hooks. This invites damage to the loops and occasionally a loop is ruptured.
It is therefore a principal object of this invention to provide an anti-sway bar to dampen the swinging motion of the suspended loops.
A further object of this invention to provide conveyors for sausage machines that will permit a single operator to attend two machines at the same time.
A further object of this invention is to provide a horizontal conveyor for a sausage encasing machine that has a continuous conveyor assembly operating in a substantially horizontal plane, and which can be selectively rotated in one of two directions so that an operator can stand between two oppositely rotating conveyors and thus attend both conveyors at the same time.